The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

I've put in many an hour over the holidays on the Xbox 360 (back to work on Monday; how will I do it?!) and enjoyed the fun storylines and great visuals on my 56" TV and thought about how much video games have evolved. Not just technically speaking, but with the violence it portrays: hard to say if it's a step forward or backward depending on your point of view.

Now I'm not one who thinks video games makes teenagers violent nor do I advocate censorship, but at the same time when does simple good taste enter the foray?

I played a game called Bioshock which is extremely creative and has a good story. The thing is, after a while it started to get a little depressing to play. Aside from the fact the setting is at night and everyone is out to kill your character, I got a little tired of seeing all the blood and gore depicted. I'm not going to sicken you with graphic descriptions, but let's just say surgical tools come into play. The story could have just as likely moved along without them, but there they are.

When playing Quake 4, I had Rob over and he hasn't really played the latest generation of console gaming, so it never occurred to me to tell him that the opening cut scene involves a dismembered body going through space, no guts and blood spared and that took him a little off guard. I didn't even think of mentioning it because stuff like that appears in games all the time. And when the characters talk to each other, the four letter words aren't spared either. I mean, it doesn't offend me, but it's too noticeable, like the writers couldn't think of anything else to put down.

The best of the games I've played is Halo 3, and while it is a shooting game, no one is swearing and the blood is pretty much kept to a minimum...at least compared to the other games I played. The game play and story are enough to keep you interested, and no one complained Halo 3 needs more swearing to be entertaining.

Perhaps it's just me getting older, but maybe the video game developers needs to realize less is more, and blood for the sake of blood and cursing for the sake of cursing doesn't really add anything to the product.